Review: A Raisin in the Sun" presents powerful acting performances from Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Claudia MacNeil. I was deeply engaged throughout the film due to the fine presence of the characters and meaningful dialogue. The conversations between the members in the Younger family reveal not only their unique personalities and dreams, but also, the complex nature of their relationships and the deep personal issues within each of them. Someone once said, "pride is a dangerous thing" and this film beautifully illustrates the consequences of pride. In my opinion, this is one of Poitier's finest moments in film but, more importantly, I believe this story offers a lesson to all of us, regardless of race, about love and pride. It is truly a classic film.Watch A Raisin in the Sun (1961) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: I like this 1950's movie. I enjoy most of the pictures from this era and have several of its contemporaries. I won't go into the storyline, as many other reviewers have already done that, but suffice it to say that this is one more of those 50's space movies that so many of us love. They just can't make gems like this today.

I have seen some reviews here which bag the available DVD print. I must say that I picked this DVD up a few days ago, and it seems fine; there are no scratches etc on it, and it plays perfectly well. It is a 'Bounty' DVD from Australia, and a 'Monogram' production, so whether or not it has been taken from the same master as the 'Image' print mentioned by other reviewers I do not know. My only query about it is that for the first 15 min's or so, and in some subsequent scenes, everything appears quite greenish, (ie: there is a distinct greenish tinge to the whole thing, almost as though a green filter was used in the making of the film, which I would doubt very much). I have been told that that is because it has been taken from a print which has not been re-mastered. However, it's not something that will ruin the movie for me, nor should it for you.

This movie has lots of the quaint things which are distinctive about the pictures from that era, such as fantastic rocket ships, great imagination, quaint outfits, (leather flying jackets and leather flying caps as spacesuits, alien women with padded shoulders and mini-skirts), and a martian surface with no change of gravity! - and breathable air !!! All in all it's great!

I have given this movie a 9 out of 10 because it doesn't quite come up to other movies of the period such as Forbidden Planet, (one of the best), When worlds collide, or The day the Earth stood still - even though it's black and white. Even Destination Moon was a more polished production and it was made the year before. However, it's still a great movie for any fan's collection and I'm glad to finally have it in mine!Watch Flight to Mars (2013) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: This absorbing and very entertaining movie creates a believable and interesting cast of characters, puts them into an intriguing story, and uses its settings, props, and other resources very creatively. It is a fine combination of drama and comic relief that stands up very well against anything else of its type. The setting and atmosphere are quite believable, and they make it easy to enter the characters' world.

The opening sequence sets up everything nicely, with most of POW's helping two of the prisoners in an escape attempt, while William Holden as the cynical Sefton separates himself from the rest. Sefton is interesting enough as it is, a man who simply by remaining true to his nature cannot help arousing suspicion and antagonism, and Holden was quite a good choice to play him. The story builds up nicely, with developments coming at a careful pace, and some good stretches of lighter material.

There are numerous interesting characters and good performances among the other prisoners, and in particular Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck steal more than one scene with their antics which, though goofy, are also an appropriate complement to the main plot and the setting. The German characters are more stylized, but both Sig Ruman and Otto Preminger make them come to life, and help them fit in seamlessly with the others.

Billy Wilder's direction and the photography also deserve praise. Besides the way that each sequence fits together so nicely with the others, there are several individual scenes and shots that are done in an impressive fashion - not flashy, but creative and thoughtful. The scene with Holden lying on his cot while most of the others sing and celebrate is one particularly good example. There is a wealth of good material throughout, making "Stalag 17" a classic that has lost nothing over the years, and one that can be seen and enjoyed several times.Watch Stalag 17 (1953) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Story: Pinky, a light skinned black woman, returns to her grandmother's house in the South after graduating from a Northern nursing school. Pinky tells her grandmother that she has been "passing" for white while at school in the North. In addition, Pinky has fallen in love with a young white doctor, Dr. Thomas Adams, who knows nothing about her black heritage.

Review: t is not very "in" to like Elia Kazan right now, because he named names in the McCarthy witch-hunts and just received an honorary Oscar, but what a brilliant director he was. And if he didn't show much courage in the Fifties, he sure did in the Forties when he tackled racial prejudice head-on in two excellent movies: "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Pinky" (John Ford is said to have chickened-out of directing this one). "Pinky" is not as good as "Gentleman's Agreement", but it ain't half bad either. Here we see a deeply prejudiced South where black girls are attacked on the streets and shops refuse them service. The scenes are realistic, even brutally filmed, and the language strong for its day.

I'm sure Kazan must have been dismayed to have been given a Hollywood starlet to play the complex lead character - a black woman who looks white - but he managed to extract a damn good performance out of Jeanne Crain. The supporting cast is flawless, down to the smallest role. Kazan knew how to direct actors. Evelyn Varden deserves special mention as a vicious Southern matron. But the most praise must be reserved for the two Ethels - Waters and Barrymore - who are nothing short of brilliant.

Okay, the ending's a little dicky, and predictable, but the intentions of the film-makers are sincere and the results must have been revolutionary in 1949. I love the way Kazan shoots his movies too - long unbroken sequences and tracking shots, and excellent use of light and shadow - both of which probably coming from his stage experience. Kazan combined a strong ability to work with actors and a keen cinematic eye to create some of the best dramatic films of the century. And "Pinky" is one of these.Watch Pinky (1949) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: I enjoy the transformation of Clint Eastwood's character throughout the movie. In the beginning he reluctantly becomes a gunfighter but as the movie progresses you see how he slides down the slippery slope of wickedness to become the cold-blooded killer needed for the task. Morgan Freeman's reaction to the transformation is well played also. Richard Harris' character is colorful as is his sidekick. Gene Hackman's sheriff is pleasantly atypical of the role. All these actors and their characters effectively leave the viewer with a myriad of directions from which the movie expertly entertains. If you are expecting anything like Clint's "spaghetti westerns" you will be disappointed. If you are looking for an excellent story with characters that all have varying degrees of wickedness, you will be satisfied when its all said and done.Watch Unforgiven (1992)Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: The "Smokey and the Bandit" target audience never knew what hit them when they went to see "Convoy". Used to a diet of direct-to-drive-in films they had no conception of what could happen when Hollywood threw big bucks and a competent (if distracted) director at the genre. What they got was something that movie historians are still trying to classify. A movie based on a CB radio song that morphed into a poetic homage to machinery; where trucks are turned into mythological monsters and filmed cruising through the heat-radiating desert to a score of classical music.

Why Sam Peckinpah elected to take on this project has really never been explained, although that decision certainly supports those tales of substance abuse, and the final cut is bizarre enough to also fit that explanation. It is an amazing film as it wobbles between self-parody and self-importance to a degree never seen before and never seen again until "Apocalypse Now". I'm not sure how much attention and interest Peckinpah actually showed toward the making of "Convoy". It has the disjointed feel of multiple directors or of a Director of Photography filling in many times when Sam was not motivated to make an appearance on the set.

But "Convoy's real claim to fame is as the film where Ali MacGraw's career spectacularly crashed and burned. She did not just fade away but shattered into a million pieces. MacGraw got into acting in her late twenties but looked young enough to be believable as a college-age girl in her first two starring roles; the excellent "Goodbye Columbus" and the pathetic but hugely popular "Love Story". Her age worked to her advantage as her two characters (particularly "Goodbye's" Brenda) came off as poised, stylish, classy and smart. She picked up a huge following of male viewers who would have bought tickets to anything she was in and she was generally inoffensive to female viewers. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, started fashion crazes, and made the cover of Time magazine. She also picked up the head of Paramount Studios (Robert Evans) as a husband dedicated to advancing her acting career. It was a done deal that she would get the lead in "Chinatown", a role that would fit her rather limited range (poised, classy, stylish). Her only obstacle was managing the transition to middle age in a way that her smitten fans could accept.

Unfortunately she dumped Evans for a short marriage (5 years) to Steve McQueen. Just how badly her image and career were managed after she left Evans is illustrated by her bad haircut in "Convoy". Just glance at the promotional poster and you may be able to hear the sounds of a million bubbles bursting in the minds of her male fans. The idea of "Brenda" playing a truck stop mama with short curly hair would have made it too painful to even contemplate seeing this movie. Her fan base literally melted away with the start of the film's promotion campaign. They never returned, the illusion had died. Ironically had they actually seen her horrible performance in "Convoy" they might have felt better, as the performance is so absurd it achieves a sort of surreal quality. But a couple years later they discovered replacement Jennifer Beals and moved on.Watch Convoy (1978) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: Don't get me wrong, True Grit is a good western and worthy of its classic status, but I've always found John Wayne's first go round as Rooster Cogburn to be uneven, at times colorfully into character but just as often just playing John Wayne. He won his only Oscar for it of course, but he hadn't yet completely found ol' Rooster's voice.

In this sequel co starring Katharine Hepburn, the Duke has every aspect of Rooster down pat. The scenes he and Hepburn share, trading their philosophies and anecdotes while they come to know and admire (and platonically fall in love with) each other is the engine of this film. Forget the plot, it's passable enough but very much secondary, this story gets along strictly on the strength of the two lead characters and it's worth seeing again and again just to watch these two Hollywood legends banter and spar in their one and only movie together.

This was the first John Wayne film I ever saw in a movie theatre (I was 9 years old in 1975) and it made me a lifelong fan. This is easily one of his most entertaining adventures. Hepburn and Wayne together is even more fun than Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen. A timeless treasure.Watch Rooster Cogburn (1975) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: First of all, there is John Wayne as Sergeant Stryker. Stryker was the model on which virtually every screen portrayal of a tough sergeant is based. The character's angst and intensity also give us a rare glimpse of John Wayne's true acting ability. In most movies he just portrayed himself, but there is no swagger in Stryker, just loneliness, fear, and hope. He is by far the most convincing character in this movie, and one of the top from any war movie, period.

Next: the history. Ok, the actual characters have no basis in fact, but the battles certainly do. The battles for Tarawa and Iwo Jima were very important to the war and tragically costly in lives. They deserve to be remembered. The production mixed a lot of actual footage taken at the actual battles and mixed it in with the regular film. The two look fairly similar since both are black and white, but you can tell what is real and what was shot for the movie. One's first reaction to this might be that the production went cheapskate, but, in a way, the use of real stock battle footage was more moving than an epic legion of extras like in The Longest Day. You just can't beat reality for realism, and seeing the real islands and the real marines is an eerie reminder of how many men died in those horrific battles.

Finally: the supporting cast. Ok, I can't rave about them all, but most were entertaining, especially Wally Cassell. Also, Forrest Tucker puts in a fine performance, the only one remotely close to Wayne's in its depth.

Some of the anachronisms are a bit funny, but my only real complaint in the whole movie was John Agar's character Peter Conway. I don't know who was at fault for it, Agar or the writers, but his character is hard to take. I think we are meant to like him, but for about the first 90 minutes that is pretty much impossible.

Story: Harry and Willie buy the Edison Movie Studio in the year 1912 from Joseph Gorman, a confidence man. They follow Gorman to Hollywood where, as stunt men, they find him directing movies as Sergei Trumanoff and stealing the studio payroll.

Review: I have always been an extremely enormous fan of Abbott and Costello from the very day that I first saw them, and so I decided to see more and more of their movies. Now here is my opinion on this movie, this is very funny for a late Abbott and Costello movie, I mean that for one of their last films together, this is actually hysterical! This movie is also better than I thought it would be, I guess that it only goes to show that Abbott and Costello are funny no matter what they do! This film in my opinion is another one of Abbott and Costello's best movies of their later years, it is not one of their best, but it is still hysterical and laugh out-loud outrageous!

So Abbott and Costello have once again made an extremely hysterical movie that is totally filled with laughs! In my opinion, it is great to see The Perfect Straight-Man and The Perfect Buffoon still being able to make some pretty hysterical material! Because this may have been one of their last films together, but that doesn't mean that it can't be funny. I mean that this movie is FUNNY! There are laughs in just about every single scene in this movie, from the very beginning with the silent film to the very hysterical car chase at the end, there are laughs to be found and laughed at!

So three cheers for Abbott and Costello! Fans of Abbott and Costello are probably really going to love this movie just like I did! And by the way, I own this on DVD as part of The Best Of Abbott And Costello, Volume Four, so if I want to see the kings of comedy in top form, I watch this movie! While this is not one of Abbott and Costello's best movies, it is one of their best of their later years, it's brilliant!Watch Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Story: When Pa wins a jingle-writing contest, he and Ma head for New York City. They they get in trouble with gangsters when they lose some stolen money which they had already agreed to deliver to one of the thugs.

Review: Also released on April Fools Day, this next Ma & Pa Kettle flick has most of the same cast as the first. At the very end of first one, Pa had won a trip to the big city as part of a contest, and that's where this one picks up. It opens with Ma making breakfast, and there's a great joke with popcorn and pancakes... another funny is the Native American's plan to buy back Manhattan.... keep an eye out for Jim Backus as a thug in a smallish part, YEARS before he was Thurston Howell III, and Richard Long (Nanny & the Professor, died quite young). Dan Yowlachie, plays the neighbor "Crowbar" in this one as well; he was a Yakima Native American who was probably glad to do something other than Westerns, and was also an opera singer. In this picture, we flash back and forth between the Kettles chasing after those disappearing bags in NYC, then back to the crook babysitting the children back at the house. The plot is a little more complicated and disjointed than the first Kettle movie, but it all works out in the clothes-wringer! Good, clean cut fun with jokes and gags thrown into the cops and robbers stor.Watch Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: The "Flying Tigers" gets off the ground early as Commander Jim Gordon (John Wayne) leads his blue group fighters into exciting aerial battle against the Japanese. The film takes a look at an American band of mercenary fliers defending China just prior to our entry into World War II. For historical perspective, there's a scene right after Gordon chastises hot shot flier Woody Jason (John Carroll) for missing a night time reconnaissance flight; on Gordon's desk is a calendar with the date - Sunday December 7, 1941. President Truman's declaration of war is listened to intently by the squadron on the radio, and soon after the Tigers get orders to take out a railroad supply line.

In between aerial dog fights, Gordon has his hands full managing the aforementioned loose cannon Jason, an old friend who thinks the war was made just for him. He sees each Japanese opponent as another five hundred dollar bounty, and is too impressed with himself to follow orders, even when it leads to disastrous results. The set up though allows Jason to lead the movie to it's predictable ending, in which he redeems himself by ramming a damaged transport plane into a Japanese rail car loaded with military supplies. This right after giving parachuted buddy Gordon the old Geronimo out the plane's door before disobeying orders one last time.

John Wayne's romantic interest in the movie is suitably portrayed by Anna Lee, her character a nurse at the air base tending to Chinese children and wounded fliers when necessary. Other supporting players of note include Paul Kelly as Commander Gordon's Number #2 man Hap Smith, and Gordon Jones as Alabama, who has a fondness for saying "I'm getting that old feeling" whenever hot shot Jason makes an appearance. Jones looks a bit out of place in the film, perhaps I've seen him too many times playing the foil to Abbott and Costello in any number of their own movies and TV shows.

Both as a war film and a John Wayne vehicle, "Flying Tigers" is generally adequate, taking some liberties from a historical viewpoint to be considered entirely accurate. For fans of the "Duke", it's the type of action adventure in which he excels, combining elements of courage and heroism on which his fame as an entertainer rest.Watch Flying Tigers (1942) Movie Streaming Online For Free

Review: Conte plays Felipe Rivera, a Mexican who joins up with a revolutionary group trying to wrest the country from its current leadership. His motivation is unclear to begin with but a long flashback takes care of that. Rivera's chief means of assisting the cause is boxing to raise cash for it. The film is flawed, there's no getting away from that. It has plenty of very wooden, stereotypical acting and the script is pretty crude. But there is some outstanding camera-work here (James Wong Howe was cinematographer, along with an uncredited Floyd Crosby, who shot High Noon and worked on From Here to Eternity), especially the boxing scenes but there are great moments throughout, and Conte's performance is another highlight. His role is ultimately more three dimensional than is often the case (in my experience - seen 9 of his films) and his fight scenes are great. Conte fans will almost certainly enjoy the film. Cobb's performance (as the leader of the revolutionaries) will divide viewers, but I enjoyed it - enthusiasm over realism. All in all, good fun. It's public domain and you can watch it online on The Internet Archive.Watch The Fighter (1952) Movie Streaming Online For Free